news ST. PAUL -- Competing bills for medical marijuana advanced at the state Capitol on Friday, but not without changes in a Senate committee hearing and significant questions during another hearing in the House.
The House bill would give patients access to medical marijuana, but only as part of research...
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Detroit Lakes Minnesota 511 Washington Avenue 56501

2014-05-05 09:01:28

ST. PAUL -- Competing bills for medical marijuana advanced at the state Capitol on Friday, but not without changes in a Senate committee hearing and significant questions during another hearing in the House.

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The House bill would give patients access to medical marijuana, but only as part of research studies — a compromise put forward Thursday by House leaders in response to concerns from law enforcement groups.

Those groups have testified in opposition to a Senate bill for a statewide network of cannabis dispensaries that would supply medical marijuana to patients with a doctor’s recommendation.

Testifying before the House Rules Committee, state Health Commissioner Ed Ehlinger raised practical questions Friday about implementing the research studies called for in legislation from Rep. Carly Melin, DFL-Hibbing.

The bill directs the Health Department to identify a marijuana manufacturer that could supply medical cannabis to researchers. But Ehlinger said he wasn’t sure such a supplier could be found in the timeline envisioned by the bill, especially since manufacturers must meet standards for the chemical consistency of marijuana they provide.

“It may be that some grower/manufacturer would be willing to make a substantial investment of this kind in Minnesota,” Ehlinger said. “If so, that would be great.

“If not, we have no other mechanism for developing a manufacturing facility,” he said. “Without that, the rest of the activities outlined in this bill could not move forward.”

The bill proposes that the Health Department and researchers explore the possibility of obtaining marijuana from a supply maintained by the federal government for research purposes. But independent researchers say they’ve repeatedly been denied access to this supply for medical marijuana studies.

Melin’s bill calls on the Health Department to contract with one or more principal investigators to lead research studies. But Ehlinger said finding principal investigators “may be difficult” for the studies described in the bill, which he said are “observational studies” rather than clinical trials.

“There may be more interest in traditional clinical trials,” Ehlinger said. “Both methods will require substantially more financial support.”

The House bill would provide $2.2 million for clinical studies over a two-year period ending June 2017. It appropriates $450,000 to cover the cost of Health Department oversight for the studies, and $50,000 for a legislative task force on medical cannabis research.

The House Rules Committee endorsed the measure on a voice vote. It’s scheduled to be taken up next week in the House Ways and Means Committee.

In the Senate’s health finance committee Friday, Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, amended his bill so that patients would not be allowed to smoke marijuana. Instead, they could take medical cannabis through vaporizers, or in the form of pills or liquids.

“It avoids the issue of smoke,” Dibble said of the change in an interview. “It avoids … this other kind of unquantifiable issue of: ‘Smoking marijuana sends a bad signal.’ It really specifies that this is for specific medical purposes, it doesn’t get into the whole realm of recreational purposes.”

The committee approved Dibble’s bill on a voice vote. It’s scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Finance Committee next week.

The House proposal does not allow smoking in research studies, and would allow patients to use marijuana in vaporizers only under the supervision of a clinician. It permits using medical cannabis in the form of pills and liquids, such as the oils that pediatric seizure disorder patients are using in other states.

Parents of those children have repeatedly provided emotional testimony in support of legislation this spring, and did so again Friday in the House committee.

“We need this in Minnesota,” said Angie Weaver, a Hibbing woman who wants her 8-year-old daughter Amelia to receive medical cannabis treatment for a severe seizure disorder. “Amelia deserves this. … Every seizure could be her last.”